I am a new user on stack Overflow, as many people are and I have both seen and made low-quality posts/comments. Could we avoid this by simply making users undergo a quick post/comment guide before they can post/comment?

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    There's a whole host of knowledge placed in front of new users before they can first post. Almost none of them read it. What can be done to improve that? – fbueckert Dec 16 '19 at 21:49
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    The Help Center might be a good place to start. – Chipster Dec 16 '19 at 21:51
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    Let's be real though. Most newcomers will just want their question answered and will not go through the hassle of reading the content on the Help Center. – Omi in a hellcat Dec 16 '19 at 21:53
  • I wasn't prompted with any info until I went to my user profile, so it's pretty out of the way for someone who might make an account on here just to ask a question, same with the help center, its there but newcomers typically won't research. – Jeff Dec 16 '19 at 21:54
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    Newcomers don't search for duplicates before posting either. But they still have questions they want to ask and they would find it frustrating to be stopped, no? – Robert Longson Dec 16 '19 at 21:57
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    Were you not, as a new user, prompted to take the tour? – Cody Gray Dec 16 '19 at 21:58
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    @RobertLongson yes, they probably would find it frustrating, however, when a low-quality post is made it typically doesn't even get an answer, the newcomer usually gets a remark on the quality and that is it. I do see the issue though – Jeff Dec 16 '19 at 22:00
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    @Patrice I'm sorry, I think I am not conveying what I am thinking very well, I feel that low-quality posts are made as RobertLonston said, in haste and the new user doesn't follow the prompts, they then make the post anyways and do not get an answer as the quality is so low that it commonly isn't understood. – Jeff Dec 16 '19 at 22:14
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    Why - they (and you) don't read whats already there. What actually needs to instead happen is for SO to not publish any new question at all. Instead say "your question is on hold until it has been checked for quality". – JK. Dec 16 '19 at 22:21
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    I like the idea a lot and I want to additionally have a test at the end of working through the guide. It should take at least 15 minutes. Please do this on 10k random newcomers and then compare their fate with how a control group without this treatment fares. – Trilarion Dec 16 '19 at 22:41
  • How about requiring 100 rep before you can ask a question? Not including association bonus. Make people answer / edit a few questions before they can ask their own so they get a better idea of how it works. – JK. Dec 16 '19 at 22:46
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    @JK. the 100 rep seems excessive. It's not easy to gather for one and by the time you get it, your question might be irrelevant. I don't think people would want to devote THAT much time to ask a question - it's more likely to drive people away. And before the "Mission accomplished" reaction - being new doesn't mean the question would be bad. Sure, newcomers are more likely to post a bad question but I don't think punishing all of them is warranted. Also, remember that if you fear bad questions, you're likely to get bad answers and edits, too. It's going to be a bigger strain on everyone. – VLAZ Dec 17 '19 at 6:43
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    @fbueckert: Take inspiration from some computer games where the first few "missions" are actually a sort of tutorial. Instructions and/or a quiz could be disguised as a game. – Peter Mortensen Dec 17 '19 at 7:09
  • @PeterMortensen I'd be all for it, but I'd suspect people asking have a driving need to ask, and will feel more impatient and annoyed the longer they are kept from doing so. – fbueckert Dec 17 '19 at 14:07
  • @fbueckert "...will feel more impatient and annoyed..." Not sure that is a bad thing though. It still saves a lot of time for us and them. – Trilarion Dec 17 '19 at 18:59
  • For the web UI, once a new user starts typing the question or answer, show in the right pane "good example" and "bad" example related actual posts, auto suggested based on the user's post.

  • For questions on both the web UI and the app:

    • Auto suggest the correct "on topic" Stack Exchange sites to post to.
    • Auto suggest tags.

None of this should prevent the new user from posting. This UI change makes the contents of the Help Center more vivid using the actual examples, and showing them when the user might need them - right before posting, as the user is writing.

Both high and low quality examples are automatically selected in real time based on text mining from the pool of highly upvoted (good) and highly downvoted or closed (bad) real questions or answers. The text of these example posts should be similar (in technical terms but not in style) to that of the the new user's post.

This is similar to Google search auto suggest. Auto suggest in real time is a popular feature that guides users to enter better content using teaching by example.

If real time auto suggest feature is too slow, make auto suggestions upon submit. After a new user submits the question or answer, but before the content is actually posted, the good and bad examples are shown. This allows the user to edit their content based on automatically generated positive and negative real life examples of related Stack Exchange / Stack Overflow content.

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From the comments:


I agree that is the likely cause of low-quality posts as well.

The problem is, if users are not following the prompts, then creating a package won't necessarily help.

The fact is, we already have a lovely help package, and even a tour of the site that explains how it works. Maybe we need to improve this tour to better promote the type of behavior we want (like reading the "more in depth" information before asking), but at the end of the day it's really hard to help people who will just click "next" all day long until they can finally ask a question without reading all the help information we created for them. So a new package won't really help.

Perhaps if you have specific ideas on how the current help package can be improved, I'm sure the community would be in support of good improvements, but we need specific ideas to act upon and give feedback on.

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  • Improving something that isn't read in the first place wont make any difference – JK. Dec 16 '19 at 23:39
  • Yes, but maybe improving how something is clicked through, might be useful. When writing this answer, I considered how removing the "ask" button might help improve question quality. Thus, I think there are some improvements out there that might be useful, but we do need to consider specific improvements separately, I think. – Chipster Dec 16 '19 at 23:45
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    How about simply requiring all new users to give up something precious to them, a childhood teddy, their pet, the one ring, etc before they can ask. If their question is downvoted and or closed, they don't get it back. – JK. Dec 16 '19 at 23:56
  • Childhood teddy seems a bit harsh. A fingerprint would suffice! – Chipster Dec 16 '19 at 23:58
  • @Chipster like, we take their fingerprints away from them? I just picture somebody waking up post involuntary anaesthesia in a bathtub full of ice. Panicked, the feel for their kidneys when they notice their fingers being weirdly smooth. – VLAZ Dec 17 '19 at 6:46

The Help Centre already provides this information clearly and concisely. There are clearly visible links to it and there are prompts to read it when you ask a question.

I think lots of people don’t bother to read it, or interpret it differently to the majority of users. Getting people to read it and implement it is the challenge, and has been discussed many times before, like here.

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